I have a sophomore and freshman in HS. I have heard of Private College counselors in passing but it seems like many of my kids classmates have them.

Is this something new where parent's with $$$ are all doing? I have seen quotes from 5k to 50K.

For those who have used them, can you give me some insight on

1. Was it worth it
2. Do they have some special formula to get kids in to competitive schools? We would be happy if they got into A&M
3. Do they have some special access or knowledge for scholarships? Our kids are not need based or URM.

When I was in HS, it was just do some extracurricular activities + good grades + good SAT = get into A&M without issues. Now it seems like this is not good enough. We are not helicopter parents or want to follow the masses but don't want to look back and think we were missing something that we could afford our kids.

Background - both kids club sports and have 99 GPA (Perfect prob 105 given the honors weighted system) but likely outside of top 10%.

is TAMU is absolute preferred destination?

if so, then attaining Top 8% ranking at a Texas public high school is of the utmost importance.
(they don't round down; 7.8% counts but 8.3% is too much).

learn to leverage the GPA weighting system offered at the high school
(take as many AP, Dual Credit, Advanced, etc. courses as possible.)


lastly, get the kids to learn and master the SAT test. Doing well on the SAT is truly the best way for middle class Americans to differentiate themselves (and hopefully gain some merit scholarships). Kahn Academy is free, but there are also a lot of in-person SAT prep places nowadays.
getting a high SAT will almost always bump a student outside of the top 8% from a highly competitive high school in Texas into an early acceptance.


"double b" and "Avant Garde College Prep" on this forum helps prepare people for the college admission process. a lot of people here have good things to say about them...

First thing to keep in mind. Whatever you thought you knew about the process and how it was when you applied is out the window now. It's a completely different game. The Common App making it so kids can easily apply to 20 schools if they want to (especially very strong students), the amount of information available on the internet ranging from SAT prep to essays, and of course the rise of counseling services have dramatically changed the process and there is no going back. What your kids will go through will feel very different than what you did and if you don't adjust to that you are putting your kid at a disadvantage.

Like all things you have some counselors that are excellent and some that are a ripoff. It's also important to note that you and your child's motivation and involvement are the keys. It's kind of like a baseball player going to a hitting coach, if you aren't putting in the work it's not going to matter. Also, with the level of competitiveness of college admissions now at selective schools you are both at a serious disadvantage without one. Still there are no guarantees but places like A&M you can get to the point where you can feel more confident on who will get Regular/Blinn/PSA but there are always some cases that are hard to explain.

I would highly recommend engaging one now though, especially for your Sophomore. You can get great advice that can guide class decisions and EC's and how to prioritize. If you wait another year it's more about crafting what you have into a good application but you don't really have time to make significant adjustments. Be very wary of anyone that is too expensive or guarantees you anything though. If it is a company and not an individual that is usually a bad option for most. I used a service through my wife's company that was free and honestly it was a waste of time and got bad advice, essentially they had this big team of folks that would review things you sent them but it was rarely the same person and they didn't have real knowledge of the nuances of A&M.

I was very glad I engaged with double b for my younger son. He has had amazing results and I am confident he got the most out of what he had in large part because of the advice and tutoring from Robb at Avant Garde. There are at least 3 significant things he had us do that I would not have thought of without him that made a huge impact. Now my son is literally choosing between multiple options with huge scholarships including at A&M and has gotten in to some schools he wouldn't have. His pricing is also extremely reasonable and flexible, by far the best value I found. There is some investment involved but it's some of the best money I ever spent if for no other reason that I KNOW that I did everything I could to help my son go as far as he could with the work he had done.

I would also strongly recommend 2 Podcasts for any parent that is new to this process that I have found very helpful. "Your College Bound Kid" is a great collaborative Podcast put on by a group of counselors that really are on a mission to inform and be helpful and they have a great website as well. They end every Podcast with "It's not where you go it's what you do when you get there and what you do when you get out of there" that is the theme of everything they do. The second is "The Truth about College Admissions" with Rick Clark who runs admissions at Georgia Tech. Lots of insight from what goes on inside the admissions world from a University perspective. There are a ton of others that have specific advice on how to get into Ivies or other highly selectives as well but I'd start with those.

"learn to leverage the GPA weighting system offered at the high school

(take as many AP, Dual Credit, Advanced, etc. courses as possible.)"


just make sure you understand exactly how your HS calculates GPA/class rank. I was under the impression that simply taking as many advanced classes as possible was the way to go to boost GPA so that's what we encouraged our kids to do. Turns out that our HS GPA system is flawed and unfair to the ones who take really tough course loads for 4 years. The school has admitted as much and will begin a new system w the class of '28. We have a 1.25 multiplier that is applied to every class on the transcript once you reach a certain number of "advanced" courses and all types of advanced courses(honors, CTE, DE, DC and AP) count the same. The required number of credits is very low so it makes it easy to play the system and boost your class rank w a bunch of easy classes as juniors and seniors.

phorizt said:

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"learn to leverage the GPA weighting system offered at the high school

(take as many AP, Dual Credit, Advanced, etc. courses as possible.)"


just make sure you understand exactly how your HS calculates GPA/class rank. I was under the impression that simply taking as many advanced classes as possible was the way to go to boost GPA so that's what we encouraged our kids to do. Turns out that our HS GPA system is flawed and unfair to the ones who take really tough course loads for 4 years. The school has admitted as much and will begin a new system w the class of '28. We have a 1.25 multiplier that is applied to every class on the transcript once you reach a certain number of "advanced" courses and all types of advanced courses(honors, CTE, DE, DC and AP) count the same. The required number of credits is very low so it makes it easy to play the system and boost your class rank w a bunch of easy classes as juniors and seniors.

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This is helpful if your goal is to attend Texas A&M and meet their auto admittance standard. If you're looking at UT - Austin, or any other selective college on a similar tier or higher, then securing a strong rank/GPA is just the tip of the iceberg.

Regardless, I encourage every family to explore their student's GPA weighting system and make a four-year plan. Then after each year, make the proper adjustments that will continue to appropriately challenge your student and help them achieve early success in college with their intended major.

Additionally, addressing academic struggles early is often beneficial. Intervening during the elementary years, particularly with foundational skills like math and reading, can prevent more significant challenges later on. Early support can be a valuable investment in building the student's confidence and long-term academic success.

Thank you. Very helpful information. We have a meeting with a highly recommended counselor this weekend. It has been over 30 years since I applied to college and all of the hoops kids have to jump through now seems overboard but a game that they need to at least understand.

Thanks again and very grateful for your advice.

Medaggie said:

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Thank you. Very helpful information. We have a meeting with a highly recommended counselor this weekend. It has been over 30 years since I applied to college and all of the hoops kids have to jump through now seems overboard but a game that they need to at least understand.

Thanks again and very grateful for your advice.

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Happy to help however I can, like I said the biggest thing to keep in mind is that whatever experience you had has little bearing on what your kids will go through because the process has changed so dramatically. That is important both for how you approach the process but also how you support your kids through the process. I have just seen so many parents not understand this and end up very frustrated because they don't get the results they expected for their kid causing a lot of heartache all around. It's a game that you have to play, just learn as much as you can if you expect to do well.

A few fun stats for instance. Rice in 2005 had a 40% admit rate. This cycle for Regular Decision will probably drop below 5%. Georgia Tech used to be 60%, now for OOS it's also going to be around 5%. I could list example after example of this and how it has changed. Any Top 25 school has gotten crazy and any public school with a strong Engineering program is getting increasingly crazy. The patterns are also very hard to predict. I know someone who was recently accepted at MIT and rejected at Rice and others that have been accepted at multiple Ivies and rejected at Georgia Tech. The amount of kids with near perfect stats and insane extra curriculars is staggering.

A&M operates very differently than most schools as well with Rolling Admissions, the Top 8% rule (it will be Top 8% for your kids), and the Blinn/Gateway/Alternate pathway programs. Getting into Engineering and Business are also much harder than other majors. Many things about A&M admissions are just different than just about anywhere else. It can be a very stressful and confusing process.

As I have said a many times before, most of these aforementioned schools are not that difficult to transfer to. UNC Chapel Hill even has a 40% admission rate for their transfers. I know that path is not ideal for most, however, if a degree for XYZ institution is the ultimate goal then it is the path to least resistance.

Thank you for everyone's input. We settled on a college counselor that is well respected and knows our kid's HS very well. Just the fact that someone else who knows more than me can set/follow through with expectations/deadlines for our kids for the next 2-3 years is invaluable.

It is now up to them to follow through.

Medaggie said:

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Thank you for everyone's input. We settled on a college counselor that is well respected and knows our kid's HS very well. Just the fact that someone else who knows more than me can set/follow through with expectations/deadlines for our kids for the next 2-3 years is invaluable.

It is now up to them to follow through.

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That's great! I would recommend you do your own research as well and educate yourself as much as possible on the process and options. I have found Podcasts to be the best source but there are blogs and other resources. There are some good books for sure but the landscape is changing really fast. The more informed you become the better advice you can give to your kids and take the pressure off of them to try to figure it all out. A Counselor is very helpful but don't outsource everything to them, instead educate yourself as much as you can so that when you or your kid is meeting with them you have questions and thoughts put together already to make that time as productive as possible.

Of course the key component here is going to be your kid's interest in the process. I can say right now though as someone who has a Senior that all the hundreds of hours I put into the process with my son has paid off, he absolutely got the most out of what he had and in the end got to choose between a nice scholarship at A&M (that's a whole other story) and a full ride elsewhere and chose the full ride with absolutely crazy extra benefits. It was a very long and stressful journey though over the last 2 years to get here though. I know so many of his friends that are choosing between options that were well below what they hoped for because they put their hopes into extreme longshots that they didn't realize were longshots or that made lots of fundamental errors in their application strategy. I know others that are going to their dream school.

The earlier and harder you work it the more likely you are to end up getting the best possible result and it amazes me how people just take the process so casually for such a life impacting decision. If nothing else even if you know exactly where you want to go and know you can get there the more prep you do the better you are likely to do once you reach your destination. Or you may discover something you never considered ends up being the perfect fit, that's what happened with my son. He would have been fine had we not put in that work I'm sure but now he's got so much more of an opportunity and is so well prepared to take advantage of it.

KALALL said:

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This thread blew my mind. I hope my kids want to go into the trades, because all this just to get admitted into an undergrad program seems stupid.

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Just wait until you see the price tag associated with some of these undergrad programs. I am guilty as charged and will soon have two in privates. I could write a great dissertation on the scam that is higher education, yet here I am....

KALALL said:

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This thread blew my mind. I hope my kids want to go into the trades, because all this just to get admitted into an undergrad program seems stupid.

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Look at it in a positive way that your kids just need to take ownership of their education and have a plan. If you just think you can go to generic college U and invest in whatever and "find yourself" while dropping $150k (or a LOT more) and expect a happy ending you are a fool. That said it is really on the parents to help kids understand this and the sooner the better. Make sure your kids don't feel like college is just assured and there are no expectations, that's what most people do and then they wonder why kids struggle or graduate surprised that a 6 figure job wasn't just waiting for them. Kids are sponges and they will absorb whatever you put into them, they just might do it quite the way you want them to.

I have never thought that just because my kids were 18 that I shouldn't treat them like adults. For my boys it has always kept them motivated and focused and they are miles ahead of most of their friends.